The bile came back and I wished for a squirt of hand sanitizer.
Anyway, fact was that he’d been tagged because of my hand-wiping move and that made him easier to spot.
“Hey, big boy,” said a particularly grotesque goblin who was wearing a pink nightie. “Want to come to my room for a…sample?”
“I…uh…”
Renny grabbed my wrist and dragged me away.
Okay, so “dragged” is a strong word. I would have leapfrogged ten or twenty of these little creatures had Renny not come to my aid.
“Keep your eyes on the prize,” he said. “I got a meeting in twenty and I don’t want to be held up on account of you trying to score some love-time, got it?”
“Got it,” I replied, wondering if he actually thought I would have been interested anyway.
“Hey, pal,” said another goblin who stepped in front of me, effectively blocking my path, “you need something? How about a nice radio?”
“Radio?”
“Back off, dicknose,” Renny said, giving a shove to the other goblin. “This one’s already got a deal going with me.”
“Okay, okay,” said Dicknose, which I hoped wasn’t really his name. Although, to be fair, that was probably a fine name down here. “Just trying to make a living.”
Renny guided me to a spot on the side where there weren’t any tables.
“Look,” he said, pointing at me, “quit staring at all the tables and wares, yeah? I told ya before that I got a meeting to get to.” He pulled out a watch that was affixed to a gold chain. “We’ll be there in two minutes if you can keep your head in the game.”
I held my hands out in apology.
“You’re right, pal,” I said as a bell rang. “Let’s go.”
He grabbed my wrist and held me in place. I was actually surprised by his strength.
“What’s going on?”
“Raid.”
“You have roaches down here?”
Renny’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“Never mind,” I said, realizing it was a lame joke. “You guys get raided?”
“Only when something is out of place,” he answered while looking around. Then he slowly turned and looked up at me. “Or someone,” he added.
Shit.
“Okay, Renny,” I said, dropping to his height, “I’m going to level with you. There are three dragons chasing me.” I cracked open my billfold. “I’ve got a whole bunch of bills in this wallet if you’re still willing to get me to those stairs.”
His eyes glittered.
In a dull voice, he said, “I could probably get jewels for turning you in.”
I then pulled out Boomy and stuck it in his side.
He nodded slowly.
“Better to live and get more gold, than to die with only a little bit,” he said as a goblin who knew the motto well. “All right, I’ll do it. Put the damn gun away, though. I don’t like working like that.”
The problem, as I saw it, was getting through the mass of goblins who were trying to spot what the hell was going on.
I stuck out like a sore thumb, too, being that I was much larger than even their staunchest specimen.
But that’s when Renny did something I couldn’t have expected.
He pulled out a large red card and held it high.
“VIP coming through,” he shouted. “The alarms you’re hearing are for this VIP. Clear the way, ya mongrels!”
The goblin crowd parted faster than a satyress’s legs at an orgy.
We got to the stairs without a fuss, but now I was concerned that Renny was going to get screwed over even worse by the dragons. I probably shouldn’t have cared, but that’s just the kind of guy I was.
“Aren’t you going to get in a lot of trouble for helping me?”
“Nope,” he said, holding out his hand for payment.
I handed over the bills, as promised.
“Why not?”
“Because this is how we roll on level four, pal,” he said while rubbing the currency between his fingers. “Deals are what we do. You made a deal with me, it’s my responsibility to see it through.”
“Yeah, but the dragons—”
“Won’t do shit,” he interrupted. “They’re the ones who set up the rules. If they hurt me for upholding a contract, there’ll be a revolt.”
“Oh, well, thanks then.”
“Don’t mention it, pal.” Renny turned to go and then stopped again. “Hey, listen, I probably shouldn’t say anything, but level five has the faceless ones. If you want to get through there alive, you’re going to need to know one simple trick.”
I opened my wallet to show him it was empty. I had nothing left to bargain with.
“I’ll take the gun,” he said.
“Boomy?”
“Sure.”
“Not a chance,” I said, holding the Desert Eagle like it was my only child. Then I grabbed my back up. “How about this one?”
“Good enough,” he said, snatching it out of my hand. He eyed it while grinning. “All right, so I can’t tell you outright, but I will say this: What you don’t see, can’t hurt you.”
I cocked my head to the side. “I don’t get it.”
“Best I can do, pal,” he said before merging back into the flow of goblins.
Out in the distance I saw Claire and her two brothers making their way through the crowd. Why they didn’t have a red card, I couldn’t say, but I was glad they didn’t.
It was time for me to visit the faceless ones.
Chapter 23
Renny’s little tidbit of advice seemed to be worth a lot less than what I paid for it.
And it was bullshit anyway.
“What you don’t see can’t hurt you,” he’d said.
Tell that to a sniper, the bogey man, a land mine, heart disease, radiation, Rachel when she was really pissed off at you but didn’t say a fucking word about it until you’d turned your back and then she just lets loose and…
I coughed lightly, realizing that I was kind of letting myself get into a frenzy for no reason.
Or was there a reason?
I was in the realm of the faceless ones down here, and that meant level five. This was the level of wrath. I’d have to keep myself in check.
Anyway, the point was that there were plenty of things out there that you can’t see but can sure as hell hurt you.
Every fiber of my being told me that it’d be better if I didn’t walk out into the circle of “hell” I was standing in. Standing back here in the shadows would be super fine. Honestly, the thought of walking out into the open made me consider just surrendering to the dragons, and I probably would have if it weren’t for the fact that my crew was out there and I needed to get to them.
They’d survive without me. I knew that. I wasn’t that egotistical, after all. That wasn’t the point, though. They were my responsibility, and that meant I had to do whatever I could to get to them…get to Rachel.
“Honor slays deceit,” hissed a dark voice that was just outside of the entrance. “Love is for fools.”
I felt a wave of cold running over my body. It made me shiver uncontrollably, as if I’d just fallen through a sheet of ice into the water below.
And what was that “Love is for fools” bit all about?
“Hate cures the disease of love,” came another hiss, but this one sounded slightly different.
“Tried that once,” I whispered to myself. “Didn’t work.”
Fortunately, there was no response to that.
“What you don’t see, can’t hurt you,” played in my head again.
Dumb.
How could anyone actually believe that?
I was stalling.
“Well, Ian,” I said to myself in a quiet voice, “you’ve gotten past goopy slugs, fucking (pun intended) satyrs, toothy manticores, and greedy goblins.” I breathed out nervously. “If you get through this one unscathed, you’ll only have to deal with demons, valkyries, fae, and that other thing that I
was hoping you would have said as I rattled off the rest.”
Damn it. Whatever that final thing was, it just wouldn’t get to the surface of my brain. I wasn’t even getting one of those “it’s on the tip of my tongue” situations.
“Time to step out and face the faceless.”
That felt like the wrong thing to say.
On instinct, I reached for Boomy but then remembered that bullets would do nothing against these things. They were wisps, blank, void, wraith-like creatures that couldn’t be killed with projectiles or standard battle tactics. Fact was that I couldn’t say exactly how they could be destroyed. What I did know was that they could end me. Seemed a bit unfair, truth be told, but that’s life in “hell.”
I gathered my courage and took a step out beyond the mist.
There weren’t many of them, but even one was more than enough.
My angst increased every time I looked at one of them, but I couldn’t help myself. They floated like ghosts, wearing gray cloaks that hung on their frail-looking frames. I couldn’t see their faces under the hoods, but seeing that they were known as the faceless ones, I doubted I’d spot anything discernible anyway.
One of them jolted and then spun toward me.
Sure enough, nothing was hidden in the opening of that cloak besides a somewhat oval shape that was only a shade or two lighter in gray than the cloak.
My blood began to boil for some reason.
Hate welled up in me.
“You’re worthless, Ian,” I yelled at myself as other voids joined and stared at me. “How could you leave your crew like that? What the hell were you thinking? Have you no honor?”
An instant later the barrel of my beloved Boomy was pressed against my own temple.
“Yes,” came the hisses from all around me, sweeping my body to the core with freezing pain.
My finger ached to the pull the trigger as the self-loathing increased to the point of unbearableness.
Then I closed my eyes.
Chapter 24
The emotion fled and I lowered Boomy in a controlled fashion.
“See us,” demanded the whispering voices, but I kept my eyes closed.
Apparently, Renny’s advice was right. It wasn’t quite a riddle, but his vague words took a little time for me to needle out.
I was still being raked with feelings of angst. There was no way around that, since I was submersed in wrath here. But I could control this level of emotion. I just couldn’t look at them. Even a glimpse would send me into a spiral…obviously.
“See us!” They were chanting it now, and with every cadence a burst of chilled air struck me.
“Fuck off,” I said back in a calm voice.
They silenced.
I wanted to open an eye to see what they were doing, but it wasn’t worth the risk.
Instead, I moved in the direction of a wall, bumped into it, and then started following it with as much pace as I could.
“Open your eyes,” tempted a void that was clearly close by. “We can free you from your pain.”
“The only pain I feel is you idiots. I was just fine until I looked at you.”
I sensed hesitation in its movement, but I kept trudging forward. My assumption was that my friendly pursuing dragon contingency was not as easily affected by these things as me. So far I’d made it through, but these creepy things could get me to end myself before the dragons even arrived, if I weren’t careful.
One step at a time.
“That hurt, you know?” the void said.
I raised an eyebrow but kept my eyes shut. “Huh?”
“The implication of your words is that you felt pain because you find us unattractive,” it replied.
“Yeah,” hissed a bunch of others, sending that wonderful blast of cold along.
“We’re well aware that we don’t have faces, and maybe that’s not appealing to the likes of someone like you, but you don’t have to be a dick about it.”
I stopped.
I frowned.
I turned and opened my eyes.
My hand reached for Boomy.
I slammed my eyes shut again.
“Damn it,” I said with a grunt. “Stop doing that shit and I’ll talk to you.”
“Doing what shit?” the void asked, sounding genuinely perplexed.
“You honestly don’t know?” I replied. “How can you not know?”
“What?”
Unbelievable.
“I’m not saying that you guys are ugly,” I explained. “It’s just that every time I look at you, my brain starts giving me reasons as to why I should end my own life.”
“Oh, that’s what you meant?” the void replied in a terse way. “That’s our job, man. We’re on the level of wrath here, you know?”
“Yes, I know,” I said, wondering what the fuck was seriously going on right now. “Look, has it ever occurred to you that maybe people who come through here don’t want to kill themselves?”
There was a general murmuring that was followed by, “No.”
I shivered. “Can you quit it with the cold breezes, please?”
“What cold breezes?”
Another cold breeze hit me.
“Never mind. Fact is that people, in general, don’t want to kill themselves. Nothing does.” I held up my hand. “Again, that’s generally speaking.”
The murmuring began again. I couldn’t understand anything they were saying since their native language consisted of hisses. It sounded kind of like Morse code, but with a larger communication set than just dashes and dots.
While they were yammering on, I continued on my merry way down the wall.
I cracked open my eyes to see that none of them were in front of me.
There was also no pain.
No anguish.
No suicidal thoughts.
So as long as I wasn’t looking at one of them, everything was fine? Sweet.
I still felt the general grumpiness associated with this level, but having my eyes open meant I could move more swiftly toward my goal.
I began running as fast as I could, staying near the wall so I could slow down and shut my eyes when the voids finished their discussion and came after me.
“Wait up,” I heard them call out as I got close to the exit. “Please, we beseech you!”
While it was against my better judgment, I stopped just before exiting the area.
They approached.
“Look at us,” said the one who had spoken to me earlier. Again, a chill struck me, but it was somewhat diminished. “Please.”
“Why?”
“We have discussed your point of view and feel that maybe it is us who have been deceived.”
This could be useful.
“One sec,” I said, stepping toward the stairs and setting Boomy down.
Then I returned, swallowed hard, and opened my eyes.
There was no additional torment.
“Is that better?” they said.
“Yes,” I said, noticing that the faceless ones were all unique in some way. Whether it was the shading of their flesh or a slight glow or an angle of their shape, they were all distinguishable. It was somewhat mesmerizing. “Wow.”
“What is it?”
“You’re all…beautiful,” I said, feeling the angst in my mind dissipating.
They glanced at each other and hissed back and forth for a second. Then they nodded at the main void.
He nodded back.
“So, we all want to know…are you being honest when you say that, or are you screwing with us?”
I laughed at that. “I’m being honest. You should look like this all the time.”
“We do.”
“No,” I said, seeking to clarify my meaning, “I’m saying that you should stop with the angry stuff—”
“Wrath,” he interrupted. “Not ‘angry stuff.’ It’s wrath. Different thing entirely.”
“Right, okay. Well, stop with that, then.”
“But we’re in the level
of wrath,” he pointed out again, this time pedantically.
I crossed my arms and glared at him. “And so that means that you all have to exact that wrath? You have no choice? You can’t just stand up to the pain like everyone else in the world and choose to be positive?”
“All right, Tony Robbins,” said another void, “relax already.”
“Shut up, Michelle,” said the main one before turning back to me. “Sorry, she can be a bit trying at times.”
“Up yours, Keith,” she hissed back.
“Anyway,” Keith continued, “you were saying that we can choose not to be who we are?”
I scrunched my face at him and looked around at all of their…well…faces, I guess.
“Aren’t you doing that right now?” I asked pointedly.
More murmurs and then vigorous nods.
“My goodness, we are.”
“Feels better than being douchey, doesn’t it?” I said.
“Nope.”
“Shut up, Michelle,” Keith spat over his shoulder. “Yes, it does feel better, but our jobs—”
“…Are shitty jobs,” I interrupted. “Going through life with the sole purpose of making others want to kill themselves or people around them? What kind of gig is that?” There was no response. “Aren’t there things you’d rather be doing with your lives? Do you have no dreams?”
One of the voids raised its hand tentatively.
“Yes?” I said, as they all turned toward it.
“I want to be a poet.”
“A poet?” the others replied in unison.
“Yes.”
There was quiet for a moment.
“Well, then,” said Keith in a supportive voice, “go ahead and recite one of your poems, Estelle.”
She put a hand on her chest. “Oh, I couldn’t.”
The others began coaxing her to share her poetry with them.
“If you’re sure you want to hear it, I suppose…” Estelle said finally.
The crowd started chanting, “Poem, poem, poem.”
“All right.”
Estelle reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a small journal. She thumbed through it for a moment and then cleared her throat.
The sun sends love for flowers
The moon dries tears you cry
The heart soars high like towers
Blood Bane Tower Page 9
